Day: September 13, 2016

Ghosts of Telemachus: Bay fire chief urged inspector to ‘walk away’ from code violations

Publisher’s Note: The following is the Copyrighted content of the Sea Coast Echo and is used here for purposes of advancing public interest journalism on the recent suicide of Police Chief Mike Denardo. Slabbed New Media claims no rights in the creative work below other than its fair use pursuant to the United States Code.

Bay fire chief urged inspector to ‘walk away’ from code violations
By J.R. Welsh
Jun 10, 2011, 17:39

Last October, the Bay St. Louis fire chief allegedly ordered a fire marshal who ultimately lost his job to “just walk away” from situations where he discovered fire code violations at local businesses, rather than follow procedure and issue citations to business owners.

In a Civil Service hearing Thursday, it was revealed that Fire Chief Pam San Fillippo had chastised former Fire Marshal Eddie Bourgeois for issuing citations to restaurant owners, inferring that his actions were making things politically uncomfortable for Mayor Les Fillingame.

“Just walk away from it,” San Fillippo told the 42-year-old fire marshal, who spent more than 22 years as a firefighter and reserve deputy sheriff before being fired by Fillingame in early March.

In such cases, she said, Bourgeois should simply bring the information to her instead of acting on it.

“Tell them you’ll get back to them … the mayor cannot have businesses complaining,” she said.

Unbeknownst to San Fillippo at the time, the discussion was recorded on Bourgeois’ cell phone as he was being reprimanded for taking action against a local Chinese restaurant where he found a dirty stove hood that posed a fire hazard. Also during the conversation, San Fillippo said: “There’s other businesses still complaining that you’re trying to go after them, trying to harass them … whatever.”

San Fillippo was interim fire chief at the time, having replaced former Fire Chief Fred Butts, who had quietly resigned in disgust over interference from city hall in Fire Department matters. San Fillippo, a close friend of Mayor Fillingame and his family, was later elevated to full-time fire chief. Continue reading “Ghosts of Telemachus: Bay fire chief urged inspector to ‘walk away’ from code violations”

What’s in the spelling of a surname: No detail is too small to pass over right now in the Bay

And one thing that puzzled me was the spelling of Chief’s last name in the media after his suicide, “De Nardo”, which my rudimentary knowledge of the romance languages indicated as an intentionally changed spelling of Denardo, as we have spelled the Chief’s name here on Slabbed. First up is some linguistic research and for that I used House of Names:

The Denardo surname was a patronymic name, created from the personal name Nardo, which was in turn, a shortened form of Bernardo.

Denardo Early Origins
The surname Denardo was first found in the Kingdom of Naples, formerly Napoli or Neapolis, in southern Italy. There is also a city of Nardò in the province of Lecce, that dates from the Baroque era. Belisario Acquaviva, a nobleman and writer from the Kingdom of Naples became the first Duke of Nardo (Duca di Nardò) in the 15th century.

Denardo Spelling Variations
Spelling variations of this family name include: Di Nardi, Di Nardo, Nardo, Nardone, Nardini, Nardi, Nardis, Nordi, Nordine, Nardino

It no secret that Chief was ethically Italian which is why I wondered why his spelling of his surname would the use the French preposition “de” instead of the Italian equivalent “di” as shown above at House of Names. Maybe Chief changed how he spelled his last name after landing in some hot water over in St Tammany because in the Bay he did spell it “De Nardo”? Or maybe it was another reason. Whatever the reason, there is a younger man by the same name in Wallkill New York that uses the conventional spelling and I have a few press reports that illustrate it.

Head of Wallkill Fire District board charged with stealing nearly $240K from district coffers ~ William J. Kemble Continue reading “What’s in the spelling of a surname: No detail is too small to pass over right now in the Bay”